1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to retrieving information from electronic files, and more particularly to a method of searching for information in one or more of a plurality of electronic files interconnected by a computer or a network to, for example, engage in the pursuit of commerce for desired products and services.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 is a flow diagram showing a conventional process implemented by buyers for locating products and services. According to this process, a buyer, first, identifies a product or service of interest and, then, looks for that product or service, and/or its seller, using one or a number of resources. The buyer, for example, may visit the seller""s place of business to gain information about the products or services he is offering. Before, or in lieu of a physical visit, the buyer may consult one or more textual resources, including catalogs, standards, specifications, product data sheets, and Internet web sites. The buyer may also use a number of communications tools to assist him in obtaining information, including the telephone, facsimile machines, e-mail resources, and Internet web-site services and search engines. Through these efforts and resources, the buyer is able to amass a collection of information regarding some of the products and services being offered for sale in the marketplace. The buyer may then select from the collection the product or service which he believes best suits his needs.
Efforts have been made to improve upon the conventional process of searching for information on products and services. For example, electronic commerce, such as that conducted on the Internet and sometimes known as Internet Commerce, has proven to be more effective than the conventional process for locating desired products and services. These systems, however, also have a number of significant drawbacks:
Inefficient Searches. Known methods of conducting electronic commerce require the buyer to use an electronic catalog, or require him to electronically walk through a store, to find the desired products and services. This causes the buyer to look at only one item at a time and from only one source at a time. Comparisons with other products or services or with other sources are time-consuming, and may not be cost-effective for the buyer. Regional listings, such as Thomas Register, and industry specific sources do not allow identification of acceptable products that may appear in non-traditional sourcing files.
Limited Searches. Known methods of conducting electronic commerce, can search for products or services only from companies in electronic catalogs, and the buyer""s options are further limited because he will receive information for only those products and services which those companies sell, which may not necessarily be all the products and services in existence, the best ones to suit the buyer""s needs, or the ones having the lowest price.
Lowest Price Information Unavailable. Because sellers tend to push only those products and services having the greatest sales incentives, information on other products and services being offered for sale by sellers may not be readily available. Unwary buyers, therefore, often end up paying more for products and services. Also, in this regard, known methods are flawed because there is no single resource available which consistently provides lowest price information for products and services offered by sellers, including those which the sellers may not be currently pushing.
Confusion. Sellers sometimes replace or modify original equipment manufacturer""s parts numbers to confuse buyers, such as embedding dashes or adding prefixes or suffixes. Known methods for conducting electronic commerce cannot differentiate between the original and modified parts numbers, and thus will not prevent this confusion.
Packaging Differences. Seller often offer different packaging schemes for the same product, e.g., the product may come in different sizes as by the box, spool, gallon, drum, etc. Known methods of electronic commerce offer no way of differentiating between these differently packaged items. As a result, buyers often fail to find alternative packaging for the products they desire. Examples include resistors and lubricants.
Total Cost to Buyer. Different areas of catalogs have cost structures for discounts, shipping, handling and taxes, thereby making side-by-side cost comparisons difficult and labor intensive. Buyers usually seek a shopping list of products and services and need a decision support tool to automatically calculate all the factors that result in the bottom line cost for delivery of the products and services on the shopping list, not just the published prices for the individual items. Known methods for conducting electronic commerce cannot meet this need.
Delivery Time. Problems similar to those of total cost to the buyer apply for item availability, and in determining expected time from order until receipt for items on a shopping list. Known methods fail to adequately address these concerns.
In addition, or in conjunction with electronic commerce, international standards (e.g., ISO 13584, Parts Library) have been developed as a resource for providing information on product families. However, use of coding schemes from those standards results in searches of limited effectiveness, i.e., only products in the cited family can be located.
From the foregoing discussion, it is therefore clear that a need exists for a method of conducting electronic commerce and communicating characteristics data which overcomes at least the aforementioned drawbacks of the conventional methods described above.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a computer-implemented method of conducting electronic commerce which is faster, more efficient, and more effective than conventional methods for locating products and services.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a computer-implemented method which simultaneously searches for and collects in a central location information on a plurality of products and services offered by different sellers/manufacturers.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a computer-implemented method which locates products and services to meet a buyer""s needs without requiring the buyer to have a foreknowledge of the nature and type of those products and services, or their sellers and manufacturers.
It is another object of the present invention to achieve the aforementioned object by providing a computer-implemented method which locates product/service information to meet a buyer""s needs by only requiring the buyer to identify one or more characteristics of the product or service for which he is looking and then to allow a characteristics-taxonomy-driven model to automatically locate information on products/services and their sellers which match those characteristics.
The foregoing and other objects of the invention are achieved by providing a computer-implemented method for effectively communicating characteristics data for products and services, which method includes forming a taxonomy model of characteristics for products and services linked via indexing keys to a companion dictionary of terms and to electronic sourcing files containing characteristics data on offered (or available) products and services. The characteristics taxonomy is structured into four domains of form, fit, function, and administrative data, and permits identification of products and services that can be located without the system user knowing the type of product or service or the source of the product or service.
In one embodiment, a buyer specifies characteristics of a product or service from the taxonomy model and establishes required values of the fundamental units of measure or other identifying information for one or more of the specified characteristics. The system uses the associated indexing keys to locate and display a plurality of available products and services which satisfy those requirements. The displayed products and services can be immediately available from proximate inventory as well as nationally or internationally available via the Internet. Criteria for expanding or narrowing the search are selected by the user.